UCLA wins awards for prostate cancer
research
For the second year in a row, researchers at UCLA’s
Jonsson Cancer Center have earned more prostate cancer research
awards from CaP CURE than any other institution in the nation.
Ten UCLA scientists will receive more than $1 million in grants
from CaP CURE, the world’s largest private source of funding
for prostate cancer research.
“CaP CURE is extremely pleased with the prostate cancer
research program that has evolved at UCLA,” said the
executive vice president and chief science officer for CaP CURE,
Dr. Howard Soule.
Currently, surgery, hormone therapy, chemotherapy and radiation
are the only approved treatments for prostate cancer, and all have
side effects. The CaP CURE grants fund research that may lead to
new therapies which have fewer side effects, said Dr. Charles
Sawyers, director of the Prostate Cancer Program Area at the
Jonsson Cancer Center
The Jonsson Cancer Center researchers receiving CaP CURE grants
this year include: Dr. Michael F. Carey, Dr. Pinchas Cohen, Dr.
Sanjiv “Sam” Gambhir, Dr. Jay R. Lieberman, Dr. Robert
Reiter, Dr. Charles Sawyers, Dr. Marc A. Seltzer, Dr. Peter
Tontonoz, Dr. Owen Witte and Dr. Hong Wu.
Scientists work to restore forests
More than half of the world’s tropical forests have been
lost since 1950, due to the use of agricultural and wood
products.
Scientists trying to find ways to restore these forests still
have much to learn, according to Karen Holl, assistant professor of
environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz, because habitat restoration
demands greater site-specific knowledge than is currently
available.
“We’re seeing a scope of destruction now that is
unprecedented,” Holl said. “Recovery efforts are very
new, and we don’t know very much.”
Holl said even the most successful restoration projects
couldn’t keep up with the pace of ongoing destruction
throughout Asia, Africa, and Central and South America.
The future of the Brazilian Amazon remains bleak. Ecologists
lack data on natural forest recovery processes, but Holl’s
work in Costa Rica to accelerate the process has shown some
success. But tropical forest restoration is not a solution to
deforestation, Holl said.
Student shot during attack at high school
A student was shot and another was injured in an apparent gang
attack outside a San Fernando Valley high school Thursday
afternoon.
One student was shot in the forearm and pelvis and another was
struck with a blunt object, said Hilda Ramirez, spokeswoman for the
Los Angeles Unified School District.
Both were hospitalized but neither suffered a life-threatening
injury, Ramirez said.
The attack, believed to be gang-related, occurred in the parking
lot of Reseda’s Grover Cleveland High School, about 15
minutes after the school’s 3 p.m. dismissal, said Officer
Jason Lee, a police spokesman. Five to seven shots were fired, he
said.
Three people were arrested within a half hour of the attack, and
police were looking for two other people, Lee said.
The school’s principal, Allen Weiner said the boys were
innocent bystanders. He told reporters the shootings occurred after
five people drove up in a van and got into a fist fight with
another group of people.
“One of our students, an 11th grade student who was in the
area, was struck in the forearm,” Weiner said. “Another
one of our students in the area was actually kicked in the
head.”
Compiled from Daily Bruin staff and wire reports.